Joe Biden easily wins South Carolina Democratic primary
COLUMBIA, S.C. — President Joe Biden easily won South Carolina’s Democratic primary on Saturday, clinching a state he pushed to lead off his party’s nominating process after it revived his then-struggling White House bid four years ago.
Biden defeated the other long-shot Democrats on South Carolina’s ballot, including Minnesota Rep. Dean Phillips and author Marianne Williamson. His reelection campaign invested heavily in driving up turnout in what it saw as a test drive of its efforts to mobi- lize Black voters, a key Demo- cratic bloc central to Biden’s chances in a likely November rematch against former President Donald Trump.
“In 2020, it was the vot- ers of South Carolina who proved the pundits wrong, breathed new life into our campaign, and set us on the path to winning the presi- dency,” Biden said in a state- ment. “Now in 2024, the people of South Carolina have spoken again and I have no doubt that you have set us on the path to winning the Presidency again — and mak- ing Donald Trump a loser — again.”
The Associated Press declared Biden the win- ner at 7:23 p.m. based on an analysis of initial vote results showing him with a decisive lead in key loca- tions throughout the state. He won all 55 of the state’s Democratic delegates.
The victory comes follow- ing the president leading a Democratic National Com- mittee effort to have South Carolina go first in the party’s primary, citing the state’s more racially diverse pop- ulation compared to the traditional first-in-the-na- tion states of Iowa and New Hampshire, which are over- whelmingly white.
South Carolina is reliably Republican, but 26% of its residents are Black. In the 2020 general election, Black voters made up 11% of the national electorate, and 9 in 10 of them supported Biden, according to AP VoteCast, an expansive survey of that election’s voters.
Biden pushed for a revamped primary calendar that will see Nevada go second, holding its primary on Tuesday. The new order also moves the Democratic primary in Michigan, a large and diverse swing state, to Feb. 27, before the expan- sive field of states voting on March 5, known as Super Tuesday.
New Hampshire rejected the DNC’s plan and held a leadoff primary last month anyway. Biden didn’t cam- paign and his name wasn’t on the ballot, but still won by a sizable margin after supporters mounted a write-in campaign on his behalf.
South Carolina, where Biden has long held deep relationships with support- ers and donors, also played a pivotal role in his 2020 campaign, where a big win revived a flagging effort in other early-voting states and propelled him to the nomination.
Biden was aided by longtime South Carolina Rep. Jim Clyburn whose 2020 endorsement served as a long-awaited signal to the state’s Black voters that Biden would be the right candidate to advocate for their interests.
Clyburn remains a close Biden ally and said Saturday night that he believed New Hampshire’s delegates should be seated at the party’s convention this summer and that Democrats should avoid any further infighting.
Both Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris have consistently thanked South Carolina’s Democrats for their support. Biden was traveling this weekend in California and Nevada but called into several Black radio stations across South Carolina.
He told WWDM in Sumter, “The only reason I’m talking to you today as president of the United States of America is because of South Carolina. That is not hyperbole. That’s a fact.”